1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to electronic commerce. More specifically, the present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for providing information and recording information in order to facilitate a purchase transaction conducted across a network.
2. Related Art
The recent success of the electronic commerce over the Internet can largely be attributed to the ease with which consumers can make purchase transactions from the comfort and privacy of their homes at any hour of the day or night.
One of the problems in making such purchase transactions is that a consumer is required to input billing information, such as credit card information and a shipping address, in order to consummate the purchase transaction. The requirement to continually resubmit such information for each purchase transaction is an annoyance that can make the process of purchasing items across the Internet less attractive to a consumer.
In order to remedy this problem, some web sites store billing information for consumers that visit their web sites, so that the consumer does not have to re-enter the same billing information for subsequent purchase transactions on the web sites. Unfortunately, since the billing information is kept separately on each web site, the consumer must still re-enter the billing information in order to purchase items from new web sites.
What is needed is a method and an apparatus that provides billing information to a remote computer system in order to facilitate a purchase transaction from the remote computer system.
After a purchase transaction is complete, web sites often communicate confirmation information, such as a confirmation number, details of the purchase transaction and shipping information, to the consumer. This is typically accomplished by displaying the confirmation information on the consumer's browser. Unfortunately, in order to remember this confirmation information, the consumer typically scribbles the confirmation information on a scrap of paper, which can be easily lost. Confirmation information can additionally be sent to a consumer in an email message. However, this email message must be saved and cross-referenced with the purchase transaction, which involves extra work that can be annoying to the consumer.
Additionally, what is needed is a method and an apparatus that automatically receives and stores confirmation information related to the purchase transaction so that the confirmation information to be easily retrieved by the consumer.